A place to put my epiphanies
[e·piph·a·ny - n. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.]

Monday, 24 August 2009

Day 2: Photos

A small portion of our Night 1 tent camp - taken on the morning of Day 2 (Monday)

School buses were waiting after breakfast to shuttle us through to the start, which was in a valley about 2 miles before the trailhead leading up to Hope's Pass

Runners waiting in the start chute for the day's stage to begin. Lisa and I started really far back so we had a lot of time to make up. Nearly impossible on the upward trails.

Beautiful forests while still at lower altitude (about 10,400ft here). Very difficult to pass people going up - we did overtake a good number of teams ;)

A cool section of trail where it goes through a scree slope. We're at about 11,300ft here.

At the top of Hope's Pass. Behind us you can see one of the two 14,000-er peaks in this vicinity (there are 5 in total in the area). Behind us is where we came from (down in the valley). I think we're at 12,500ft here.

And facing the other direction... Lisa and Lisa again. Our route down is behind us. The closest lake visible is one of two, known as Twin Lakes.

Down was wonderful - superb quality trail mostly through forests - once we'd dropped below the tree line. Long down, big descent. We'll rubdown our legs very well this afternoon and again before we go to sleep tonight.

A girls pair just behind us crosses this small, chilly, mountainfed river. The water is cold but felt so good on our feet and calves. We beat them through to the finish, which was only about a mile from here.

Food at the finish. Fresh fruit (watermelon, peach, banana, apple - nicely chopped up by the Gore-Tex volunteers), canned tuna in a cup (not always easy to get down but really good for the body), Gu everything, Gatorade, Erin Baker's cookies (another event sponsor) and loads of friendly smiles from runners and crew. We finished this second day - a short, 16km run - in 3h05.